Details from the Woman at the Well

There are a lot of interesting details in the story of Jesus and the woman at the well.  And I love looking at details.  I don't know if it is my shady past as an English major, or my love of one-to-one conversations, or if it is something else entirely, but I have found details from this story fascinating.

Take for example, the fact that the encounter takes place at high noon.  One chapter ago, Jesus met Nicodemus in the dark.  There is this chiaroscuro quality to their conversation, both light and darkness, insight and ambiguity.  He says, "How can this be?"  He is wrestling with the implications of what Jesus is saying.  That can't be a bad thing.  I think of the darkness in the story as a place of germination for Nicodemus' faith, and for ours, too.

But the next story takes place in broad daylight, high noon.  All the other women came to the well early in the morning when it was not so hot.  Why is the woman there by herself?  There's another detail to be reckoned with.

Here's the detail I am thinking about right now, though:  at the very beginning of the story, Jesus initiates the conversation by saying to the woman, "Give me a drink."

I think this is a very odd evangelism technique.

In John's gospel, Jesus does not come off as needy very often.  From the very beginning, he is the Messiah, the anointed, the Holy One of God.  He is self-assured.  He does weep at Lazarus' tomb.  But then, he raises him from the dead.

But today, he is sitting at Jacob's well on a hot day, and he begins by asking for help.

Water.

That's how this very deep theological conversation, the longest recorded conversation Jesus has with anybody, begins.

I think back to my missionary past, and the assumptions that I made when I first arrived.  I considered the good news that I had to share.  I thought that I should open with that.  Get right to the point.  Tell people what I knew.

But Jesus didn't.  He started with his own vulnerability.  He wanted a drink of water.  But at some point in the conversation, she discovered that she was thirsty too.  She didn't know how thirsty she was.

Sometimes I think that Jesus, at the beginning, is being coy.  "Give me a drink," he says, but he's not REALLY thirsty.  He's just saying that.  But then I think ahead to the end of the story, and how Jesus says, from the cross,  "I am thirsty."  Here he is, the Water of Life himself, and he is thirsty unto death.

Give me a drink, he says.  That is how the Savior of the world saves us.  By being thirsty.

"Give Me a Drink"

It's sort of an odd way to start a conversation.

Especially it's an odd way to start a conversation, if you are the all-knowing, all-powerful Messiah and Son of God, and the person who is coming to the well is a Samaritan woman.

I say this because, well, this IS John's gospel, and Jesus does often come off as someone who has-it-all-together.  Even in this conversation (especially later).

But right now, at the beginning, he asks the Samaritan woman for a drink.  It's noon, after all, and it's not Minnesota in March.  He's got to be thirsty.  He asks for a drink.

I can't help thinking, as I read this story, that it's a parable for missionaries.  Jesus has gone into another country (Samaria), and he means to share his life, living water.  He goes with a mission, but the first thing he does is ask for a drink.

In other words, the first thing he does is reveal his own need, risk showing his own vulnerability, admit that he is thirsty.  Just like she is.

Although the word "missionary" is loaded with negative connotations and maybe is not the best word for us to use any more, the truth is that Christians again live in an era when we need to be missionaries.  This probably fills us with dread, but if not dread, it gives us the idea that we need to go out with all of the answers and as if we have everything all together.  We think we are going to meet people and impress them with our superior humanity, our lack-of-neediness, the way we have it all together.

But perhaps the best mission strategy is just to go out and be thirsty.  To meet people on the basis of our common humanity, to risk sharing our own thirst and our own questions, to reveal some of our own wounds and scars.

When Jesus first sent the disciples out, he told them not to carry extra provisions, to depend on the hospitality of those in the towns where they were going.  Don't be so self-sufficient, he told them.  Go thirsty.

It's a mission strategy, and it's a Lenten strategy too:  Go thirsty.  Don't be so self-sufficient.  Depend on God, on one another, on strangers.

I almost missed today....

It's early in the month, and, without really saying anything, I had decided to post something every day in November. (November is the month, and all that.) But here it is, almost 10:00 Central Standard Time, and I didn't get anything up today.

Oops. It's kind of early to give up.

Lately, I have a lot on my mind. Some of it is very complicated, and will take awhile to sort out. I've been thinking a lot about the Lutheran Core and the Word Alone, how, long ago I used to go to North Heights Church, a charismatic (Lutheran) church which I now regard as kind of scary. But more on that later.

Here are a few of my random thoughts:

1. I feel passionate about social justice, but I love the gospel.
2. I knit backwards. I just read a book that says that left-handed people don't have to knit backwards; after all, you knit with both hands. You CAN learn to knit just like everybody else. I'm not sure that's true about ME, though.
3. I've been reading a lot of poetry lately, some ouf of a book called Beloved on the Earth, which are poems dealing with grief.
4. My dad is probably coming home from the nursing home tomorrow.
5. My mom needs to go to Arizona soon to clean out their old place. She needs someone to drive with her. I would love to, but I live as a very over-scheduled pastor. Lately, I've been thinking: what does a healthy, balanced life look like?
6. In a healthy, balanced life, I would have time to cook simple suppers more often.
7. At the Celebration of Confirmation last night, we learned about all kinds of thirst, many kinds of thirst. The thirst for love. The thirst for meaning. The thirst for belonging. We also learned that there are people in this world who are literally dying of thirst, because there are not wells with clean water for them to drink.

I'm thirsty for a little compassion, I'm thirsty for time, I'm thirsty for the freedom not to feel like I have to "meet or exceed expectations" all the time. But that doesn't begin to describe it.

What are you thirsty for?